Margaret Thatcher Receives Critical Eulogy From South Africa

Source: The Huffington Post

Posted: 04/08/2013 5:59 pm EDT | Updated: 04/08/2013 6:15 pm EDT

WASHINGTON -- Margaret Thatcher's death on Monday at 87 has brought tributes from all over the world.

All over the world, that is, except for South Africa. Going against overwhelming mainstream sentiment, Thatcher refused to impose sanctions on South Africa's apartheid regime and went so far as to describe the African National Congress in 1987 as terrorists. "Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land," she said of the ANC at the time.

The ANC might have ground its teeth raw producing its statement on her death. "Her passing signals the end of a generation of leaders that ruled during a very difficult period characterised by the dynamics of the Cold War," said ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu. "She was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe, to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world." By invoking "public service structures," Mthembu is referring to Thatcher's relentless and largely successful push to privatize transportation, pensions and other government-controlled elements -- policies the ANC opposed in general.

Pallo Jordan, a once-exiled ANC leader, was more direct. He told the Guardian: "Good riddance."

"I've just sent a letter of congratulations," Jordan said. "I say good riddance. She was a staunch supporter of the apartheid regime. She was part of the right wing alliance with Ronald Reagan that led to a lot of avoidable deaths."

1. Shameful shameful

It's one of the many things I wish Thatcher had changed her mind on. That and Northern Ireland. I feel exactly the same way about Blair and Iraq, I feel that when Blair left, Brown became PM with an albatross around his neck regarding siding with the US on Iraq. I was discussing the 2010 election at work and I said I don't know who to support but I hate hate hate HATE the fact that Labour sided with the US on Iraq, it just went contrary to whatever they tried to achieve during Thatcher's years.

I don't know whether she recanted on it but certainly the Tories had changed their minds on the issue.

And as an American living in Britain, I can honestly tell you that Thatcher, and people WILL scoff at me for saying so, is she was more to the left of the American Democratic Party than people would like to attest to on many many issues. Just not issues like apartheid and Northern Ireland. In fact, she'd probably be more liberal than Hillary Clinton and that's saying something.

14. Reagan and Thatcher will be remembered in much the same way by large parts of the global south

As a South African, I remember entering my early teens with Thatcher and Reagan in power. How different my perception was then. Growing up under Apartheid, America and the USA with all their nominal equality and human rights were beacons of those things for me. I really believed the USA was Reagan's "shining city on the hill" and the viewed the UK in a very similar light. But with the dawning of greater global political consciousness I came to see them as enemies of those things, because of their support for fascist dictators, Apartheid regimes and absolute monarchs around the world. Both of them resisted attempts to make South Africa a pariah for its horrific policies until it was simply no longer politically tenable. Thatcher, like Reagan, was a force for evil in the developing world and was at the vanguard of a decades-long process of upward redistribution of wealth. Like Reagan, she produced nominal improvements by kicking the harmful consequences of her unsustainable policies down the road and fostering a toxic business culture . Like Bush 1, Major was sabotaged by the fruits of his predecessor's policies.